On a global scale, climate change and infectious disease get the majority of the attention for environmental health concerns, however there are other imminent threats, expecially to poorer countries, that are affecting people today, according to an article in Time Magazine's Science and Space Section.

In the postwar times, lead contamination was in large part due to the exhaustion of leaded gasoline from vehicles. Once leaded gasoline was banned in the 1970's, the contamination levels among humans went down dramatically. However, with the lingering affects from polluted industrial sites that are located adjacent to many urban housing areas, many people are still affected each year from elevated levels of lead in their blood.

There is no safe lead level in your bloodstream. Lead, as a neurotoxin, can cause many adverse health conditions including lower IQ's, behavioral disorders and has recently been linked to higher crime rates. Lead contamination is a major issue in poorer cities and countries that have not been able to control the amount of industrial pollution throughout their cities. The Blacksmith institute has dedicated themselves to cleaning up this pollution in these areas to attempt to reduce the amount of contamination is happening in regions where chemical poisoning hasn't received much attention. "A 2007 study done by Blacksmith found that pollution cleanup projects produced a year of life gained for every $1 to $50 spent, compared with $250 to $300 for every year of life gained for projects that focused on infectious disease or malaria."

"On a global level, this analysis highlights the importance of assigning more public health resources to identify, evaluate and remediate lead-contaminated toxic waste sites in these countries. In order to prevent further detrimental effects on neurodevelopment in children, these countries should create programs to identify toxic wastes and reduce lead exposure," said Dr. Philip Landrigan, the dean of global heat at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai.

The more support we have for the cleanup of these industrial waste sites, the quicker that we can put a stop to lead contamination worldwide. ECOBOND LBP is dedicated to aiding in the solutions for lead based paint treatment, sealing and removal to prevent further damage to the citizens of these less fortunate areas.